Dirt That Can't Be Scrubbed Clean
by MadelineElaineDew
Summary: Sam is just so distracted these days that he's dumb – lucky for him, however, Dean is a little smarter than he acts. *General spoilers up to season three* Sam/Dean
1. Part I

**Sam is just so distracted these days that he's dumb – lucky for him, however, Dean is a little smarter than he acts.**

**Pairing: Sam/Dean**

**Spoilers: General up to season three**

**Warnings: Zip**

**Word count for Part I: 7,771**

**Dirt That Can't Be Scrubbed Clean**

**I.**

Once, someone asked Sam why he didn't like Halloween.

_Did you have a bad experience?_ they'd speculated, eyes cataclysmically huge and paternally concerned for his childhood's well-being (ha-freaking-ha), _A 'monster' change your views on it when you were a kid?_

The irony, and the generous slathering of tragedy that had been appropriately heaped on top, was unbelievable.

Dean actually muttered a stunned, "Holy crap," under his breath, eyebrows swooping toward his hairline in disbelief and mouth fighting between a pointless smirk and an empathetic (or as close as Dean could get) curve, his rough palm coming to rest securely upon the back of Sammy's neck.

And it _was_ Sammy in that moment, not Sam; Dean murmured, "Sammy," in a tone that he usually reserved for the likes of _We gotta kill her, man_ and Sammy zeroed in on it because otherwise he would be six months old again and left with his mother, screaming, burning, _dying_ at the flickering flame-hands of a certain yellow-eyed monster… so yeah, forgive Sam if a night in which innocent children dressed up as and celebrated the existence of such things was not his favourite practice (not to mention that the thought of people appreciating and partying about evil spirits simply went against the very grain of Sam and Dean's purpose for living).

"Sam, Sammy, come on," and Dean was hauling him away from the naïve woman standing there mildly stricken and ever fretful, no better known to what she had said, one of his hands clenched around the jut of Sam's shoulder and the other around his left forearm, nails leaving little half-moon crescents in Sam's twitchy skin. Dean pressed his brother flat against the passenger door of the Impala and slammed him with a stern look, all raised eyebrows and careful slash of a mouth.

"Get off me, man, I'm fine, I'm _fine_." Sam shoved Dean's hands off him, feeling scalded and blistering in the places he had been touched – the outside temperature, of course, heat crawling up the line of Sam's throat as he jerked his body away from Dean, slanted is head to the side.

"Oh really? Is that why you're nearly passing out talking to these people, huh?"

"Oh, go to hell, Dean."

And Sam shunted his overbearing sibling off, swinging open the car door and dropping down into the sticky leather seat, impassive and stone-faced, the oppressive warmth of the day weighting down insistent and demanding upon him, just like every freaking thought he didn't want to have in his head.

"Look, man," Dean started lowly as he got into the car next to Sam, his tone just gunning for a brotherly moment of Real Feelings that Dean was usually the most eager to avoid, and Sam didn't want to hear a word of it. He would sooner shove bamboo splinters beneath his fingernails then talk to Dean about his _real feelings._ Just because Dean wanted to all of a sudden didn't mean he would get it.

"So it looks like a simple angry spirit, huh, that we're dealing with here? And everyone is just assuming it's some sort of Halloween legend invented around the recent death?"

Sam raised his eyebrows at Dean, expectant, and a moment passed full of brooding stares (Dean) and soundless pleading (Sam), before Dean dropped the matter with a sigh and a lilt to his broad shoulders. _Don't talk about it if we don't need to_. That was the rule the Winchester's lived by, and there was no reason that it shouldn't apply here as normal.

Except, well… it was usually Dean doing the gruff shunting and Sam pushing for the mushy feelings crap. The reversed tables felt completely disorientating, and Sam tried to ignore the nagging itch in his brain that he should just talk and attempt to appease his big brother's concern.

"So we figure out who the sucker is and burn his bones," Dean continued with an affirmative nod, chin ghosting up and down, fingers thrumming against the black steering wheel and sunlight hitting his collarbones in the most interesting way, all brisk angles and smooth shadows. Sam shut his eyes. "Sounds easy enough."

"Never is with us, though."

A sigh. "Yeah."

The quiet in the car bleared down on Sam, squashing into his ears with a shrill ring and shuffling through his chest haltingly, and Dean's measured breaths were the one steady thing within conceivable proximity. Sam tested the edge of his teeth against his tongue, his lip, just barely managing to catch himself before he shook his morosely.

Sam spoke, forehead crumpling, eyelids fluttering. He always yielded to Dean. Always will.

"I just- I, I, I don't like Halloween, alright?" he bit out, cursing the serrated gravel rumbling in his voice and prying his eyes open with some difficulty. He risked a glance at Dean, hated himself immediately because his brother was staring back, eyes huge and waging war between a humorous retort and a serious response (try story of Dean's _life_) and green, so stupidly green, a green that Sam had known his whole life. A green he remembered staring up into at six months old, his baby body cradled in the now scarred arms that had filled out with the years, the glittering irises reflecting the licking orange of flames and a nursery room burnt to a crisp. Sam blinked and wrung his hands together between his knees, wrenching his gaze to the fast-food wrapper littered car floor.

"What, is this like that Christmas thing you had?" Dean demanded except it wasn't really a demand, that was just how Dean's voice sounded, as sure and controlled as the Earth's orbit around the Sun, and Sam thought that was a really good way to think about how his relationship with his brother worked; he orbited around Dean and Dean was so damn bright and consuming, the pathway around him consistent and completely involuntary. Sam gave off a weak shrug, picked at the zigzag of a loose seam on his jeans leg.

"Not really, no. It's just, you know, Dean-" Sam slid Dean an suffering look, his soft voice buffering, "-it's a night dedicated to all the evil things we _kill_, and there's these parents letting their kids dress up and go around scaring people and _getting_ scared like it's, it's so much damn _fun_ and letting them think it's _okay_ for monsters to- to, to _exist_ and do the things they do, when we _know_ what they do, Dean, and I-"

"Hey." Dean's knuckles were just barely pressed to Sam's shoulder for a fraction of a second, all scorching heat and almost non-existent pressure against tense muscle and Sam seized up, limbs locked and heart racing as it tried to come to terms with fight or flee, and Sam thought _flee flee flee_ in quick staccato before he shook himself out of it and blew out a pain-filled breath because this was _Dean_, just Dean, just Sam's brother. The one constant in Sam's life. He was an awful pain in the ass, smart-mouthed jerk, and it _so_ got on Sam's nerves the way they were in each other's faces every second of every damn day, as though if one of them blinked the other would be lost, but Sam wasn't _scared_ of Dean. He was never scared of Dean. Hell, Sam was more often than not the reason Dean made _other_ things scared.

"They don't know any better," Dean continued with a scarcely perceptible angle to his eyes and his face tilted down, shading it just so in a way that made Sam's mouth bone dry because shit, Dean hadn't noticed that little mental fiasco in Sam's mind just then, had he? "And we should be damn glad they don't; then we'd have a shitstorm on our hands. People asking for personal security and all that crap, and they would get pretty pissed when we only took the pretty girls into safety."

Dean dropped a wink, mouth slanted in his usual _eh Sammy, eh_ manner and Sam swallowed with a rough wince, kicked his insubordinate mouth into a shitty half smile and nodded at Dean. He gestured vaguely with his big hands that they should get going, lots of research to do, you know, Dean, I don't care how much you hate libraries.

Sam felt pierced to his stomach with sickness at the thought of Dean and girls, his mouth a barren wasteland and organs a nuclear explosion site, a different sort of sickness than your general _ew, my brother_ and Sam mumbled, "We gotta stop at a gas station before the local library," as the Impala snarled to life beneath him and his brother.

Dean glanced over; Sam burrowed his head into the window, hair swamping his vision, refused to look back. "What for?"

"I need some water."

"You feelin' alright, Sam?" Dean enquired and Sam huffed out a deranged breath, traitorous eyes slitting looks at Dean's relaxed body already, jumbled cut up images of Dean because of Sam's hair, all sun-kissed skin and cooled shades and taut muscles, and Sam blinked rapidly until his vision was full of dancing white spots and a photo negative Dean.

"'m fine. Just thirsty."

(break)

Sam hadn't _always_ been in love with his older brother; let's just get that cleared up.

It had only been five years, starting at the devastatingly impressionable age of sixteen, which was in fact one of Sam's biggest rebuffs to himself whenever he fell slightly too far into the thick mess of his brain and a voice screamed sick, perverted things at him as he couldn't _help_ but think about his brother in unnatural ways. He was _so_ _young_. He had never known anything else or anyone else; he'd only seen life from the backseat of a gorgeous car, his sturdy, constant father manning the steering wheel that now held imprints of Dean's lithe fingers and his gorgeous older brother grinning and jeering from the passenger seat in true twenty year old fashion. Sam didn't know much about anything at this age, but he knew his family, knew what they did. And Sam knew that if he had ever drawn attention to himself in any way that wasn't case related, he was shunted off to Dean.

Sam was bored; Dean was there.

Sam was injured; Dean was there.

Sam was angry; Dean was there.

Sam needed help; Dean was there.

Sam wanted to _talk_; Dean was there.

Dean had always, always been there.

Sam's brother was there for him on a central and essential level – just as much as blood and oxygen, Sam existed on doses of Dean, on that cocky smile and thick metal ring and warm, caring palms; the worn leather jacket and gruff growl of his voice and never ceasing smart-ass commentary. Dean had unknowingly gotten underneath Sam's skin and refused to come out, refused to do anything but mess with Sam's head, and boy, was he good at that. At sixteen, when Sam's limbs had sprouted out gangly and in the way all the time and his brother had just seemed so _unreasonably_ attractive, this lust had freaked Sam the fuck out, sure, but he hadn't been certain that it wasn't normal, wasn't just a phase. They were hardly like other brothers, after all. Did other siblings feel like this, just a little bit during their lifetime? And if they did, did they get over it? _Sam_ would get over it, right?

Wrong.

Five years on and their father had died and Sam's girlfriend had died and all that shit had happened and in amongst the pissed off ghosts and demons and vampires and werewolves; the holy water and broken bones and Latin incarnations; the dank motel rooms and various women and sharpened knives… there was always a hollow ache in Sam's chest.

Sam lived vicariously through certain things; stolen glances at sleeping Dean, his shirt rucked up and revealing a dangerous slash of deliciously tanned skin; focussing on Dean's mouth a little more than his words when Dean was talking, before smiling tight-lipped and bailing to the nearest bathroom because Sam had sickening bile stuck in his throat; getting black-vision drunk and laughing and rough-housing and becoming just a little too grabby, to the point of Dean noticing and then Sam would fantasise cutting off his own hands as he rolled over and pretended to be asleep… it was routine for Sam.

This far along and Sam had managed to come to _some_ kind of comprehension, some kind of acceptance. He wasn't going to change; understood. He indulged in it a little (give the man a break); understood. Sometimes he perilously didn't care, sometimes it horrified him to his core; understood.

Dean was detrimental and fundamental to Sam, and Sam was fucking mental about it all round.

So yeah, there was an ache. It was an unbroken thing, ever since that first night Sam had dreamed about Dean grunting his name over and over, hard hot lines and shimmering sweat against Sam and Sam had woken up with his hands down his shorts, and sometimes the ache was sharp and sometimes it was dull but it was always, always there.

Just like Dean.

(break)

"Hello, earth to Sammy?"

Fingers snapped in front of Sam's eyes, a white shard of light refracting off the ring one of them wore and across Sam's vision, and Sam tore up from his slumped position with a particularly painful bang against the mahogany desk he'd been reading at. A nearby librarian – a middle aged woman who was kinda attractive, all things considered – shot him a dirty look and Sam, feeling sleep-deprived and on the glimmering edge of hysteria, only just managed to choke down his laughter because shit, she thought Sam was a bad person for being loud in a library. A heart attack would probably take to her if she knew Sam wanted to sleep with his brother so badly it was like being dissected from the inside out with a blunt instrument.

"It's Sam," Sam grumbled instead of doing anything else his mind suggested, petulant and scrubbing at his face and definitely _not_ studying Dean in the corner of his eye, half eaten sandwich in one hand, jacket probably left in the car due to the heat because Dean was only wearing his black undershirt and Sam didn't really like just how much he liked that.

Dean snorted and took a bite, eradicating half of the half-sandwich he had left. "It's grumpy, with that tone of voice. What'd you dig up, sasquatch?"

Grateful for the distraction of work, Sam cleared a small space on the desk and drew the main newspaper articles and books he'd been reading into it, and he nearly jumped out of his skin when Dean took a clattering seat next to him, all cheery I've-just-had-a-milkshake smiles and looks-like-we-might-finally-have-an-easy-case shoulder thumps. Sam acted as though looking directly at Dean would cause him to go blind – like the Sun, _again_ – and recounted what he had found, skin prickling in painful awareness of his brother's existence, clothing feeling far too itchy and scalp crawling with the urge to have Dean's fingers running through his hair, ring snagging on the shaggier locks that fell around his eyes.

"There's been a string of deaths just like the one that brought us here – a supposed hanging but with super suspicious struggle wounds and cuts, which doesn't sound very much like a suicide. They date back to the eighteen hundreds and begin with a man by the name of Jacobsen Gallagher killing himself."

"Well that's gotta be our guy then, doesn't it?" Dean interrupted and Sam immediately double crossed himself and his resolve not to look and glanced at Dean, covering his frank astonishment at the damp ruffle of Dean's showered hair and unanticipated proximity with a cross throat clearing, lips tightening. Sam's fingers curled around the edge of the table as he tried to convince himself that leaning over and pressing his open mouth to the hot side of Dean's throat would _not_ be the best plan of action. Dean raised his hands in defence, eyebrows mimicking and mouth kinked in amusement, and lent back in his seat, kicked Sam's foot underneath the desk for no real reason other than obligatory brother antagonism. Sam's stomach lurched.

"I'm thinking so," Sam agreed after a moment, pretending to skim over faded type-writer ink as he took distinctly conscious note of Dean's warm and still present foot against his own, leg faintly running up the length of his and just _pouring_ heat. "Says here that Gallagher's body was found hanging from the rafters of his home with several lacerations to his body, none that were fatal but all nasty. In a suicide note Gallagher alleged that he'd fought with, and quote, 'a white-collar man of the heavens who awakened me to my sinful ways, and so I reacted thus.'"

At this point Sam would usually give Dean a _crazy, I know_ look but the ache was tugging sharply today, demanding attention and then forcing that attention onto Dean rather than throbbing in the background like a bruise, how it sometimes did, so Sam decided to skip on that. Dean appeared to notice however and instead knocked his shoulder into Sam's with an easy laugh. Sam resisted the urge to draw back, resisted the longing to cave into his brother's warmth, and resisted the idea of slanting forward and slicking his tongue against the angle of Dean's smooth collarbone.

He stayed stone-still and Dean dragged his chair painfully closer with a screeching noise, eyes on the newspapers, and the chair's cry drew the librarian's disapproving gaze to them again. Sam tried to say something, to either Dean or the librarian he didn't know, tongue a ball of cotton in his mouth at the thought of his opened lips on Dean's skin, but Dean shot the lady a quick smile, fresh-white and alluringly sleazy, and she visibly flustered. Sam faltered.

"Stop flirting with your girlfriend and pay attention, would you?" Sam snapped, the words escaping him before he could stop himself, and Sam was forthrightly horrified at the potent jealousy just _seeping_ from every inch of his body. Dean laughed again even though Sam's tone hadn't been very funny at all. A moment passed in which Sam thought with terror that Dean was going to bring up his odd behaviour, ("What the hell Sam? You're acting like you've just done the dirty deed with a _ghost_,") but Dean just coughed and attempted to redeem himself.

"So, what, this guy had a tousle, felt like crap and offed himself because of what some priest told him?" Dean asked in hushed tones and Sam thought _ding ding ding, we have a winner_, insufferable in his manner as he watched the librarian from beneath his hair, eyeing Dean with a low look before she disappeared behind a row of leather bound books. Sam's teeth gnawed on the inside of his cheek and his jaw clamped down hard and involuntary when Dean let loose an amused, gravelly chuckle. "Then he realised damn, the preacher was all crap, and now I'm dead. I think I'll kill people too, see how they like it?"

Sam hauled his eyes back down to the newspaper in front of him and nodded on reflex, realising a moment later that his nod had been appropriate as he and Dean had drawn the same conclusion. He wondered if his raging urge to sling his arms possessively around Dean's shoulders, trace his fingertips over Dean's lips and slide into Dean's skin just to feel close to his brother again was as glaringly obvious to the scattered groups of people as he feared, a headache spiking through him at the thought. A girl that made Dean's voice chuckling, "Jail bait," slide through Sam's head, sticky and terrifying, smiled at Sam from a distant table and Sam's nostrils flared, throat gulped, nearly fell out of his chair when Dean's hand rested on his shoulder for five seconds to draw his attention back. As if it could ever be focussed on anyone else.

Half against his own will Sam sneaked a few looks toward Dean, snapshots of his brother's mouth drawing up into a half grin, arms stretched long and thick next to Sam, torso practically bursting out of his absurdly tight shirt. Sam glowered at nothing in particular; however it would be safe to say that his unfairly pretty brother was the indecent cause.

Dean snorted sarcastically. "Good call on Gallagher's half. So where's the poor bastard buried?"

Here was something Sam could respond to easy enough. "Local cemetery, unmarked grave, as was common of that time," and Dean groaned irritably, foot pressing into Sam's with particular intent. Sam endured – enjoyed – the moment, blatant and pathetic, before shifting away with his hair crashing in front of his eyes.

"Just our luck," Dean lamented and Sam had to agree with that; it had been a long time since they'd had a simple run, not that this was _terribly_ complex, but that was really to be expected of their career choice. 'Choice' being a relative word, of course, but let's not get into that.

"But it says in the obituary that Gallagher was buried in the belongings he died in." Sam risked a proper, full-on look at Dean, already fidgety from the lack of direct exposure (some people were just self-destructive, were they not?) and he caught Dean's raised eyebrows, ignored his parted lips. "And Gallagher died supposedly wearing a thick silver necklace, a gift from one of his lovers."

"One of?" Dean delved and Sam shrugged, referred to the papers and then back to his brother.

"That's all it says; I kinda assumed that was the 'sinful ways' the priest talked about to him, if that even happened. Seems to me the town folk of the day didn't like Gallagher and so decided he was just a crazy suicidal liar – no truth to the priest story; all self-inflicted wounds before he hung himself."

"Assholes," Dean commented absently as he combed through the newspapers Sam had collected during his research, fingers coming into contact with Sam's for a moment and while Dean's halt was excusable, reading and what not, Sam held his hand still for a distinctly noticeable amount of time before folding, and was surprised to see no burn marks when he wrenched it away, heart thrumming at the base of his throat. Dean seemed to just run a degree or two warmer than everyone else. Sam licked his lips, head thumping.

"So we're jus' gonna dig up every unmarked grave until we find a skeleton with a shiny necklace?" Dean summarised completely sardonically and Sam clenched his teeth abruptly at Dean's tone of voice, an audible clack that had both men starting, and Dean curled toward Sam in alarm.

Sam couldn't handle it – all the brotherly touches and crap that Dean was pulling today, the heat that was making Sam delirious, Dean's snarky fucking attitude about the research Sam had just painstakingly slogged through all the while totally consumed with thoughts of his brother, while said brother was at the motel taking a cold shower, getting relief from the temperature and treating himself to a goddamn _milkshake_, and now he was going to _sass _Sam? While Sam was trying his hardest not to pin down his brother and glue his mouth to Dean's and maybe punch him in the face, too, and ruin everything good Sam had in his life?

"Yeah, _actually_, no thanks to you," Sam spat, gathering himself and the pages he'd photocopied before shoving to his feet, hazed red and chest feeling somewhere perfectly in between flying and falling at the sharply collapsed look on Dean's face that Dean hurried to cover up, masochistic likeness be damned. Dean scrambled up after Sam, voice threading a constant hum of sarcastic, bullshit reiterations of his latest asshole-ism that Sam ignored entirely, and Sam kept stalking to the front door, silent and brimming with the tension of five years enduring unrequited love. And not only unrequited love; fucked up, gay, _incest_ unrequited love. So shit. Forgive Sam if he was just a little grumpy on occasion.

"Just _shut up_ _Dean_," Sam hissed once they had piled into the Impala, eyes stinging from the glaring asphalt reflecting the aggressive sunshine, Dean with this bitchy little smirk that screamed victory even though nothing had been won; hell, the stakes hadn't even been _specified_ to Dean, and Sam with his arms full and mouth a jagged scar. "Not another fucking word."

Dean looked as though he might argue ("Who gives the orders around here again, bitch?") but to Sam's particular shock he dropped it, nostrils flaring with something other than his cocky brother show and neck taut. Dean started the car with a violent rev but didn't pull out and Sam slumped low in his seat, badly in need of a cold shower and a minute or two away from his brother.

There was quiet.

"Sorry, Sammy," came a rough, small voice thirty heat-heavy sluggish seconds later and Sam's breath was gone.

Was that _Dean_? Apologising to him? _Sincerely_? Sam cut Dean a startled look, hasty and not thinking properly, because heat stroke _surely_ had to explain the way the he thought Dean was looking at him, green fields of iris all ablaze and fierce and Adam's apple bobbing uncertainly and holy shit, a hand reaching straight for Sam's hair with gentle, particular intent. Dean's fingers carded through the mass of brown locks atop Sam's head quickly, jerky and fleeting in his movements as Dean opened his mouth again. "Your research skills are crazy good, Sammy; you're like Spiderman from the new movies or something."

And that was a high compliment to be paid from Dean Winchester, so Sam shut his floundering mouth after locating where in his brain hid the ability to commence such an action and nodded, his head stuttering and lip torn into badly. His scalp felt burnt when Dean drew his hand away.

"It's- it's not _that_ big a cemetery," Sam offered weakly in recompense and Dean smirked, laughed, nodded, broke down the walls of Sam's mind all over again and just as Sam was thinking that snaking his hand underneath the tight quarters of Dean's shirt and skating his fingers over the hard, scarred ridges of Dean's ribs wouldn't be _that_ bad of an idea, Dean rolled the steering wheel to the left, reared into the traffic of the day and left Sam to press his face against the window and hope for some sort of release from this torture.

(break)

Dean had suggested a "little something to bring the night down with," on the way back to the motel and Sam had agreed with a brisk nod, his face attached to the window resolutely. Everything Sam did since they left the library, in fact, was exclusively through eye, head and hand motions, with the occasional grunt thrown in because otherwise Dean would pull over and smack Sam and until Sam spat out what was going on in his head. Sam felt fairly certain Dean was going to demand to know what was up soon anyway, and he was desperately scouring his numb mind for a bullshit answer. Anything but _truth is, Dean, you freaking ass, I'm in love with you_. There were only so many times one could mutter, "Had a crappy night," or, "Jus' really hating this heat," without it becoming utter litany.

They stopped at a liquor store and Dean thumped Sam's forearm, left his hand there, raised his eyebrows, nodded to the shop and blinked expectantly, apparently wanting in on Sam's stupid silent game. Sam drifted a shrug and spread his lips, waving a hand that said my usual, you know, and Dean nodded again with a brief smirk. His warm hand squeezed the flesh of Sam's arm for a moment, calloused and huge, and Dean paused, looked at Sam seriously, all glittering eyes and arched eyebrows, and hell, he even threw in a fond (and arrogant because let's face it, when did Dean _not_ look like just a little bit of an asshole?) smile, because Dean was a giver like that.

"Sammy. What the hell is eating at you, man?"

Sam should have looked away a long time ago. Dean's hand should have moved away a long time ago. Sam curled his lip in faux brotherly irritation, heart thumping in his throat like a jack rabbit running from a predator.

"You, at the moment, Dean, so bug off and buy us the booze, okay?"

Dean exhaled a laugh a second later and his fingers pressed with devastating intent further into Sam's arm before he let go all at once and entirely, and Sam felt a breath torn from his lungs as his brother left the car, filled out leather jacket and worn jeans looking… Cataclysmic.

_I hate to see him leave, but I love to watch him go_, Sam thought with an odd, misplaced smile cracking into his cheeks until boom, it hit him again, that's your _brother_ you sick fuck. Your _direct blood relative_. Jesus Christ, get a grip.

Sam rested his head against the glass of the window, his breath fogging up a little bit more of it with every exhale and his mind just a little bit strung about because fuck, he wanted to _kiss_ his brother. His _brother_. Moreover, Sam wanted to memorise the grooves and dips and muscle lines of Dean's back with his _mouth_, to taste and see and feel nothing but Dean, an excess of Dean, for hours at a time. Dean, the solid foundation in his life that had saved his ass so many times he couldn't count it, and vice versa, the moron who refused to pay attention when learning Latin was there every step of it to make fun of Sam. The person he had grown up with in every moment of his life, apart from four years that he could barely remember. He wanted to be totally consumed by Dean, be _smothered_ by him in an entirely different way to their usual brotherly antics ("You gonna finish that pie, Sam?" "Chant faster, damn it, Sammy!" "Quit your snoring, you ape.")

There was something deeply wrong with Sam, but Sam was done with fighting it. Fighting a desperately losing battle and insisting to himself, bloodied and screaming, that he _wasn't_ looking at Dean the way you're thinking, just shut the hell up.

He wasn't going to tell Dean anything, act on any urges, Jesus no… but he wasn't going to live with this existential undercurrent of torment either. He didn't know where that left him, somewhere hazardously unbalanced in a grey spot, but whatever. Sam would deal with it. He always did.

(break)

"There isn't _any_ connection," Sam insisted for the fifth time since they had arrived at their motel room, where Dean had immediately thrown off his shoes, shucked off his jacket and over-shirt that he'd hauled back on in the car for some reason and inhabited the bed nearest the door ("First person the attacker gets to, Sammy, and it ain't going to be you," "Over protective drama queen," "Watch your mouth, bitch.") Sam had set up station at a desk on the same wall the bed was, laptop in front of him and various papers littering the table top and floor around him, Dean on his mind (amongst the distressingly high body count of this case and the haggling nag that they'd calculated something incorrectly). The sun was halfway dipped beneath the horizon, bleeding vivid red and orange slashes through the accumulating onyx.

Dean waved the whiskey bottle precariously from where he was propped up against both his and Sam's pillows, eyes cemented on the crappy TV playing crappy shows, mouth set in a subconscious pucker, and, Sam was thinking, a lot more drunk than he was letting on. More than half of his bottle was already gone and they hadn't been cracked open _that_ long ago, and he was yet to stand up – _then_ it would all go rushing straight to his head and stomach and Sam was kinda waiting to laugh at Dean falling on his own face.

"They all died exactly the same way as the first dude, and none of them showed any signs of being suicidal. Tell me how that isn't a connection," Dean muttered, taking another deep swig, his lips wobbling around the words 'suicide' and 'connection' ever so slightly. Sam huffed, buried a smirk, loathed a creeping blush. "Drink up, baby brother, and stop overworking. We've got the right guy."

Sam felt something the size of a fist jam itself down his throat at _baby brother_ (thanks for the reminder, asshole) and there was no way he was going to able to down anything, but Dean was suddenly watching him with an insistent stare, all blurred shadows and eyes so smudged they were leached all over his face, so Sam manned the hell up, grabbed his own bottle and spluttered through a few gulps, desperately ignoring how hot his face felt with the knowledge of Dean watching him as he drank.

The liquid was acrid; Sam hated it going down, loved it when it buzzed warmly in his stomach a moment later, hated it again when his eyes were inevitably drawn to Dean and _shit_, that asshole was just catastrophic in the shitty motel lighting. Dirty fingernails and shining ring, fluffed hair and smattered freckles, folded legs and sinewy arms – Sam wanted all of it, on top of him, now.

Sam wasn't really sure how he'd react if Dean were to say his name right now, pitched low and gravelly, the way he always did. He might simply die.

"Happy?" Sam gasped, eyes watering and throat burning (from the drink, definitely from the drink), and Dean snorted affirmatively.

"Peachy."

Dean's eyes drifted back to the TV; Sam's back to his research and Sam couldn't help it – he clattered a few more details into his search on is laptop, head swimming dangerously in alcohol but it was fine, Sam was fine, god, and then he bit into his lip as he skimmed over details of the other victims deaths. Something felt so _off_.

"But what if we've missed something? Stumbling across an easy case just isn't our style, you know that man. There's always been something other than the fashion of death connecting the victims together before, Dean-"

Sam stopped talking all of a sudden, on account of the fact that Dean had at some point risen from his carefree position on the stained, squeaking mattress and had crossed the room in order to very purposefully press his hand over Sam's mouth and offer Sam a serious (and mildly, or extremely, drunk) look. Sam essentially choked on his breath, and _not_ because his air supply had been cut off; Dean's hand was hot on his face and tight over his lips – Sam could taste the alcohol Dean had been drinking and it drugged him entirely, Dean's body looming over his in a faintly oppressive manner but Sam didn't mind, not one bit, in fact oppressive felt rather homey right now. His skin crawled – Dean's neck looked awfully lick-able right now.

"Sammy," Dean said slowly and yup, Sam had been right, he was _totally_ hammered, green eyes watching brown eyes as his head swayed on his shoulders, oiled and loose, the _s_ dragging just a little bit between his teeth. "You told me to shut up today. That was rude. 'S my turn now. Shut up. Okay?"

Sam's pupils were blown wide as he nodded meekly and Dean still hadn't removed his hand, and Sam thought sluggishly that this was headed somewhere very, very dangerous, and yet, he couldn't care or pull away for the life of him. Dean fingers skated over Sam's cheekbone, releasing his mouth and Sam sucked in a tangible lungful of air, thick with Dean, Dean and more Dean. Deanknuckled into Sam's temples until he was touching Sam's hair again just the way he had in the car several hours earlier, and Sam's eyes were locked to Dean's, the green iris almost entirely eaten away by black, his mouth open as he breathed harder than the situation called for, and Sam didn't know what on earth was going on but he knew he liked it, knew Dean looked as though he liked it too. Something low in Sam's stomach curled, the sensation somewhere on the line of butterflies but heavier, and to the left of pleasant.

"Gonna need a haircut soon, Sammy," Dean mumbled, voice lilting and vaguely baby-ish, and Sam felt his heart jamming up in his throat. Dean looked very pretty in this light, from this angle of Sam seated and Dean standing above him; Sam thought he could get used to seeing Dean from waist height just a little too easily. Every muscle in Sam ached to stand, to push into Dean, to have Dean push _him_ down and hold him there, and Sam was having significant trouble digesting the way Dean's fingers were crawling through his hair and pressing into his forehead.

"You know I like it like this," Sam replied petulantly and wow, was that _his_ voice, all blown away and ruined like that, and was that _his_ ragged breathing dominating the room just then, and was that _really_ what he had just _said_?

"Yeah," Dean breathed and smiled, and it was a show of Sam's self-restraint that he didn't haul Dean to the nearest wall right there and then and flatten him against it for hours as Sam marked every inch of Dean's body. Dean swallowed. "It always looks good long."

And there was nothing conceivable to be said to that. Sam was utterly lost to the feel of Dean's fingers curled tight in his hair, stretching his neck upward into the touch, nudging his head back into Dean's waiting hands, breath dense, back arched, eyes fluttering and Dean was just… what was Dean _doing_?

Sam wrenched himself up and away and lost a few strands of hair in the process, heart wanting to leap from his chest and alcohol sloshing sickeningly in his stomach as Dean looked forlorn, hand twisted in empty air. Sam stumbled a few steps backward, the back of his knees encountering the bed so he stopped but god; he was badly shaken, at a complete loss because he'd fucked up. He'd fucked up big time. Dean's back was to him and Sam nearly keeled over and puked when Dean turned and frowned at Sam, confused and so ridiculously unaware of what he'd nearly enticed Sam into doing to him.

He's _drunk_, Sam mentally hissed at himself, he's drunk and just being a brother, goddamn it, stamp that hope the fuck out. Dean was _not_ just coming onto you.

"I, I need to pee," Sam uttered weakly and Dean nodded, eyes misted and looked past Sam, and just as Sam thought that something might actually be up ("Did you keep _another_ fucking death-related secret from me, man?" or, hysterically, "You wouldn't happen to want my mouth on your stomach too, would you?"), Dean's mouth ripped huge and wide in a yawn before smiling, drunk and sleepy.

"'kay," he mumbled and Sam could have carved his own heart out.

He disappeared into the bathroom and splashed viciously cold water over his face, across the back of his neck, rolled his sleeves up and dosed his arms too. Getting drunk was _always_ a bad idea, why did Sam never learn? Dean wasn't making any moves on him, goddamn it, he was just drunkenly commenting that his little brother might need a haircut soon. A perfectly average thing to say. Yet Sam could still feel Dean's fingers threaded through his hair, still feel Dean's hand reaching Sam's neck and not stopping, not stopping until the fingertips encountered his shirt edge and slid beneath the collar, recklessly scouring for more skin, for _naked_ skin-

And then Sam had pulled away.

"_Jesus_," Sam hissed, staring at himself in the dirty mirror and at his dishevelled appearance, hair array, red high on his cheeks and snaking up his neck, eyes blazing. The alcohol, Sam thought pathetically, it was the alcohol, and he would have stayed in there for hours if he hadn't heard a small, perfect voice blindly call out, "Sammy? _Saammy_?" and Sam nearly broke his ankles tripping over himself to wrench open the bathroom door and collapse out into the room.

Dean was a pile of tangled limbs on the bed, face mashed and content against Sam's pillow and his whiskey bottle drained and tossed to the floor next to him, Sam's emptied slightly more than earlier and discarded also. As if Dean wasn't drunk enough. His body started at Sam's clattering entrance.

"Sam?" Dean's eyes cracked open and a delighted grin broke over his mouth at the sight of his brother, hands gesturing urgently for him to come nearer. Sam edged forward cautiously until Dean caught a fist in his shirt and surged upward, using Sam to haul his weight and also simultaneously pulling Sam down toward the bed. Sam contemplated recoiling, despite the urge to climb on top of Dean, and Dean patted Sam's chest sincerely, locked him a serious gaze. "I want you to know, Sammy," Dean said, voice grave, "That I know you wanted to- _hic_, to go off and be mister fancy college boy and everything and not have to do the shit that we do, man, and it makes me sad sometimes that it makes you sad that you didn't get to do what _you_ wanted to do-"

Dean cut himself off, looked mildly disturbed. "Did that make sense? I think it made sense, okay, good." Dean palmed at Sam's face dumbly, fingers that weren't twisted in his shirt locking onto the back of Sam's neck, and Sam's skin prickled at the proximity. Dean would collapse if he weren't clinging to Sam so, and Sam was finding it rather difficult to curve over Dean like this without indecent thoughts parading in his mind, Dean's green eyes so captivatingly close. Dean's fingers tightened on Sam's neck, tightened in Sam's shirt against Sam's chest, and Sam's fluttering hands uncertainly came to a rest on Dean's shoulders. "But I feel glad, too, that you didn't get it because otherwise you wouldn't be here!"

It must have occurred to Dean suddenly that Sam mightn't have understood what he meant, because he shuddered with another hiccup and elaborated. "You'd be away being a lawyer with your girlfriend – or _wife _-" Dean looked positively shell-shocked at the possibility, "-maybe being a father and living a normal life, and that would be _so good_ for you, Sammy, you _deserve_ something like that, but I'm selfish because I like that you _don't_ have that because it means you're here with me."

Dean slid smoothly and dangerously up, pulled Sam down and their faces skated together, his stubble rough, shadowy chin scratching over Sam's cheek and Sam's nose clonking into Dean's jawbone. Sam panicked, tried to twist out of Dean's demanding, drunk hands with no success and tried to maintain his balance because the last thing he needed was to fall down onto the bed with Dean. All he wanted to do was cave entirely and open his mouth against Dean's throat and let Dean's wandering hands crawl underneath his shirt and taste the sweet, slick sweat of Dean but damn it, _damn it_, Dean was just drunk and hugging his baby brother, he didn't mean anything _near_ what Sam meant, god_damn_ it.

"Dean, what're you-" Sam started softly but Dean dropped his head onto Sam's shoulder with an earth-shattering sense of certainty and Sam choked on his words, feeling Dean's mouth press against the material of his shirt and feeling the heat from Dean's hands drawing him inexorably closer, hair short and soft on his chin. Sam wondered if anything would go fatally wrong were he to lick the sharp edge of Dean's jawline right now, nip at his earlobe, fold his hands around the irresistible jut of Dean's hip bones.

"'m glad you're here," Dean repeated stubbornly and Sam's heart swooped, "Glad you're with me, Sammy, where I can keep an eye on you."

And that sounded significantly more like sober Dean, growly and possessive and stupidly protective of Sam, and Sam hesitated, feeling Dean warm and thick and heavy beneath him, before he did anything.

"Okay," Sam murmured, quiet and gentle as he untangled Dean's fingers and pulled back, his skin scorching and shaking, "Okay, Dean, me too, me too. I like being here. With you."

"Did you like it better away from me?" Dean asked in a drugged voice, eyes barely open as Sam laid him back down on the bed and straightened out his limbs so he could get a good night's sleep, and Sam swallowed, eyebrows collapsing and lips pressing together tightly. _Dean is drunk_, Sam reminded himself harshly, _and these are his brotherly feelings. Brotherly._ Sam blinked forcefully and responded, glad Dean was too plastered and close to passing out to hear the broken, serrated edge of Sam's voice.

"No way, Dean. Not even a little bit," and Dean smiled sleepily, content and making little intoxicated noises and he burrowed his face into Sam's pillow again and stretched, sighing. Sam felt his chest contract painfully as he watched Dean, watched his face all smoothed out and absent of those anxious lines that stole to him every day, wished that Dean had meant what he'd said in the way Sam had wanted him to.

Sam undressed and cleaned the room and put away the alcohol and research, turned off the lights and slipped into his bed, stealing Dean's pillow that smelled like him, gun powder and weaponry oil and sharp knives, and Sam sighed.

Just drunk.

He set their alarm for midnight, when they would go out and begin digging up graves, squeezed his eyes shut and willed sleep upon him even though he knew he had no hope. Dean's face mashed next to his was seared in his mind, crystalized and searing and gut-wrenchingly close to what he'd wanted, and there was nothing Sam could do but let the whole encounter replay over and over in his mind like a bad joke.

"Goodnight, Dean," Sam murmured, but Dean was already fast asleep and not listening, and Sam thought that that was a pretty fucking relevant metaphor.


	2. Part II

**Sam is just so distracted these days that he's dumb – lucky for him, however, Dean is a little smarter than he acts.**

**Pairing: Sam/Dean**

**Word Count: 6397**

**Dirt That Can't Be Scrubbed Clean**

**II.**

It appeared Dean was, in fact, going the for world record of Most Talkative Hung-over Man, Ever.

"You remember that time, Sammy, when that poltergeist threw me across the room and into a wall and my head hit the corner of that huge painting frame, and I was completely knocked out and had suffered such a bad concussion that you actually had to _take me_ _to the hospital_-" Dean sucked in a large breath, "-and they very helpfully said that I had a concussion and that if I fell asleep you should wake me up every two hours, and then on the drive home I was mumbling some random shit and you were getting worried because I apparently wasn't making any sense and then I passed out again because of the concussion and you had to take me _back to the hospital_?"

Dean looked over, utterly incredulous. "Well, this is worse."

Sam barely supressed his laugh. "I'm just _saying_, Dean, that's why you shouldn't drink so much," he insisted for the sixth or millionth time, shaking his head as he tugged on the Impala's steering wheel and guided her to the gravesite. "At least not while we're on a job, anyway."

Dean was immediately indignant.

"And _I'm_ just saying that I'm the oldest and I can do whatever the hell I want, so quit bitching at me." Sam opened his mouth and Dean rapped his brother's knee sharply – Sam forcefully made himself _not_ jump or freak out or, like, kiss Dean or anything. "And no 'I told you so's."

Dean had grudgingly allowed Sam to drive the car, once he'd woken up properly and had begun forming real sentences rather than groans, _and_ once he'd actually emerged from being nothing more but a lamenting lump of blankets. This was apparently on account of the fact Dean thought it was "time for Sam's regular dose of true power", and "definitely not because my head is trying to split itself in half, or that I can still taste the drink in my throat."

Sam had expected a quiet drive, save for moans of pain and regret, but Dean had kept up a steady thrum of complaints about the job, this town, Sam's clothes, Sam's driving, Sam's vocabulary, Sam's various languages, and a side dish of commentary about the exact goings on in Dean's hung-over head.

Sam felt high from the proximity of the darkened car, intoxicated with the lethal knowledge that he could pull over right now and snag a hand in Dean's shirt and haul their mouths together, and nothing in the world could stop him but himself. Dean appeared oblivious to this: he was already back at it, digging on a place they'd had to stay in a few cases back.

"… And that diner didn't even have _eggs_, do you remember that Sam? What kind of diner doesn't have _eggs_? They're such an essential part of diner menus that I am actually having trouble understanding it – _no eggs_? What are you gonna have on toast? With your bacon? What's gonna make your _omelette_-?"

Sam's jaw pinched tightly, torn between a playful grin and legitimate irritation. "Jesus, Dean, shut up."

"Hey." Dean looked scandalized (and tempting enough in the thumping nightfall to make a nun of forty years question, um, _why_ exactly am I denying myself that? But whatever, _whatever_). "No. _You_ shut up."

"I wasn't even _talking_-"

"Exactly. Let's keep it that way."

Sam rolled his eyes so hard he must've sprained something, dangerously giddy at the easy jests, and it was only a few minutes before Dean started up again.

"Y'know, I really think alcohol should come with a warning on it." His tone was musing and Sam didn't bother to tell Dean that most bottles technically did. "Something like, 'Warning; will kick your goddamn ass in the morning.' Or midnight, in my case. 'Consume at own risk of concussion-similar pain.' Jus' something to ward off people like me."

"Would that have really worked on you, though?" Sam interrupted with a grin and Dean paused, contemplated, waved his hand carelessly.

"Sam I'm literally still kinda drunk and I would drink it again in a heartbeat," he replied seriously and Sam snorted, nodded because yeah, they'd both known that.

"So do you… remember earlier tonight?" Sam prodded a moment later, because he was apparently one for adding generous amounts of salt to his wounds, and Dean blew out air soundlessly in a laugh, clutched briefly at his head when the action must have caused alcohol related pain. Sam chewed the corner of his lip, fantasised it was Dean's for a split second before recalling Dean's drunken face pressed to his and Sam bit into his tongue so hard he tasted blood.

"_Do I remember_," Dean repeated scornfully, "'Course I remember, what do you think I am?"

"A jerk," Sam responded without thought, going along with the script but god, his heart was hammering so painfully loud because Dean knew what had gone down, he _knew_. Had he deigned Sam an utter creep – furthermore, an _incestuous, perverted_ creep? Had he noticed Sam's, quite frankly, _potent longing_ to absorb every acre of Dean's burning, untouched skin?

Dean gave a brief glance at Sam, whom blatantly ignored it, and Dean's nostrils flared, throat working. His fists tightened on his thighs and he glared out the window.

There was finally quiet as Sam drove on, the tar-seal road white washed and luminescent in the car headlights and everything beyond that an inky, enveloping black, dotted intermittently with blurred neon street signs. The atmosphere in the car was tense and while Sam knew why _he_ felt on edge, he didn't understand Dean's reasoning – something was eating at Sam's brother.

Dean made a short, frustrated noise when Sam eventually pulled over at the cemetery, reached across Sam to slam shut the door his brother had just began opening and jutted his jaw determinedly. Sam cowered in guileless terror.

"So are we gonna talk about this, Sam?" Dean demanded and Sam bit into his tongue. Wild panic of the instinctual variety skittered through his veins as he thought that perhaps launching himself out the marginally unwound window would be the best thing to do here, because _Dean was bringing it up_. "Why you're acting like… like you're allergic to me or something, the, the, the _wounded_ look on your face all the time?"

"I'm okay, Dean," Sam just barely managed in a voice without any substance, eyes urgently scoping the darkened landscape with a likeness to cornered prey and body recoiling from Dean's ever present arm caging him in. Dean disregarded him instantly with a scoff, expression narrowing with his concern-in-disguise-of-anger look.

"Yeah, sure you are, Sammy, and I'm Britney Spears," Dean growled and he sat back in his seat with a cross exhale, forehead crinkling and man, Sam didn't like that, he didn't want to make Dean angry or anxious, he was just having such a hard time controlling his stupid, sick emotions. Sam mouthed at his bottom lip, insufferable and desperate to get out of this damn car.

"We've got graves to dig, man," Sam said softly an eternity of irate silence and quivering awareness later and Dean's nostrils flared, teeth clacked together and Sam felt something destroying collapse inside of him at Dean's look of distaste in reaction to Sam's cowardice. Sam had a pathetic inability to lie when it wasn't for a case, let alone to _Dean_.

"Yeah." Dean rubbed a hand over his face shortly before shunting open the car door and climbing out, slamming it closed behind him and leaving Sam, feeling terribly deflated and awful, alone in the car.

Sam followed suit after a moment and found Dean at the boot, clattering and cursing as he removed the shovels with only a single torch beam to help him see. Sam scrambled to grab his, flicked it on and aimed it straight where Dean needed it and Dean paused for a moment, pensive. Then Sam just barely caught the flash of blurred white that was Dean's smile.

"Thanks, Sammy."

"Yeah. Anytime."

And then Dean threw something, the wide bleached arch of his torch light the only warning Sam had.

Sam darted forward to clutch at the shovel Dean had tossed him and immediately banged his knee against the Impala, whacked his head on the metal of the shovel, cracked his teeth against the flashlight he'd held to his chest in the moment. He huffed in shock more than pain, momentarily overrun with memories of his awkwardly limbed sixteen year old self, lumbering and delirious whenever Dean was near. Which was _all the time_.

Dean watched the embarrassing fiasco and shook his head, chuckle hazardous and slippery in the night and the sound drew Sam back to the present.

"Come on, klutz-a-lot, we got some diggin' to do."

(break)

Three hours, seven emptied then damn-it-this-isn't-the-one then refilled graves, and several new layers of filth tarnishing tautly pulled skin later… and Dean breached Sam's defences again.

"Did I… have I done something?" he breathed, leaning one arm against the earth wall of the current grave they inhabited. His face was glimmering in the sparse light with grime and sweat and dirt and something so blatantly _hot_ that Sam's heart stuttered.

He faltered in his movements, slammed the shovel down in the wrong place and jerked away just in time to only glance his foot with the metal edge. He hissed, face drawn in pain and exhaustion, muscles aching from the consistent exertion, heart aching because shit, what a question.

"No, Dean," Sam uttered a moment later, breathing hard and allowing himself to droop against the soil behind him. Dean _hadn't_ done anything, he was just being himself and that was something Dean couldn't help. Something Sam wouldn't want him to stop being, ever.

Sam carefully avoided direct eye contact with his brother.

"You're not… mad?" Dean tested, scratching at his black-streaked neck and passing a hand across his eyes, smearing the muck further in the corner of Sam's vision and inciting an image of the younger brother's tongue lapping away the dirt that dotted Dean's jaw. Sam shoved that away, expression twisted in confusion.

"No, Dean."

"Not having… a girl moment, right?"

A strangled chuckle because honestly, quite the opposite. "_No_, Dean."

Dean hesitated, visibly dropped the matter, smirked. "You know any other words, toddler?"

Sam's mouth slanted in a weary grin, arms quivering with the wish to drop the shovel and sleep for a few more hours (and maybe have them pressed to the slick, hot skin of Dean's torso, what_ever_). "No."

Dean laughed. "Congratulations on being so monosyllabic," he taunted and Sam rolled his eyes, straightened his back and bit his shovel into the earth again.

"That's a big word, _Dean_," Sam jeered and Dean snorted, adjusted his grip on his own shovel.

"Shut up."

They continued in companionable silence and it was only a few more minutes of dirt-heavy shovelfuls shucked over fatigued shoulders before Dean slammed his shovel down and wood cracked, sharp and splintering in the air. Sam shambled to his side, drew his grime encrusted fingers through his hair, gasped, "Is this the coffin?"

Dean laughed mockingly. "If it isn't, Sammy, then I sure don't wanna know what it _is_."

Sam curtly ignored his brother's absurdly intensive use of the nickname 'Sammy'; wrote off the tightness of his mouth and loose feeling in all his bones whenever Dean murmured it.

They hammered at the mahogany casket (its deep-seated auburn shine a thing of the past) for a while longer, Sam spreading the earth off of the coffin while Dean got the pleasure of breaking it open piece by rupturing piece.

That is, until Dean growled, "Sammy," (_again_) in his gravelly undertone and Sam clambered back over to him. The younger brother nearly keeled over in total relief, delight, even, when he spied that Dean's flashlight was trained on a dusted skeleton; sickening bone grey and flutters of eaten away clothing and a thick, shiny silver necklace.

"Jesus Christ," Sam breathed and Dean hummed something of an agreement next to him, body thrumming with fatigue, head wilting with sleep-deprivation. "_Finally_. Let's light him up."

"Getting a bit into this, aren't you?" Dean chuckled without much humour, tossing his shovel up and out of the grave with worn movements and heaving himself up after, elbows digging into the earth, crawling out painful shove by shove.

Sam followed him in the exact same manner, stared for only a moment at the slab of dark skin showing beneath Dean's crumpled shirt and the tight play of muscles where his jeans sat.

Dean wiped his dirty face on a dirty sleeve, grinned hot and white through the air at Sam. "Pyromaniac, isn't that the word?"

"When did your vocabulary _get_ so large?" Sam laughed, breathless, and he collapsed on his stomach against the graveyard grass for a brief moment, dizzy and puffing and stars bursting shiny light on the back of his eyelids.

There was an ephemeral moment of heavy breathing, Sam achingly aware of his brother's hovering existence above him before Dean curled a fist in his shirt collar, knuckles grazing the skin of Sam's neck and Sam nearly convulsed. Dean hauled Sam up, balancing him bodily with his hip and shoulder, and handed him a container of rock salt.

Sam was so freaking tired and Dean was _so_ freaking pretty and Jesus, Sam just needed some more sleep and he'd be back to his usual self control. He just had to hold out until then.

They dosed Jacobsen Gallagher's body liberally with salt and accelerant and Sam narrowed his eyes against the glare of the match Dean lit, the flame flaring up and criss-crossing Dean's face with sharp shadows and broken, wavering lines. Dean threw it down ("Nothin' personal, Gallagher,"), flame descending into the abyss. They watched the body burn together.

As the fire died down Dean fisted a grip in Sam's jacket and hauled him closer, Sam going easily albeit apprehensively. Dean swiped his hands down the front of Sam's earth encrusted shirt then curled his fingers around the collar briefly, one hundred watt grin beaming as if from a distance, even though Sam could feel his brother's breath on his cheek, his mud-caked palms smearing cockily over his neck.

So of course Sam was only returning the antagonistic favour when he spread his hands wide over Dean's collarbones, nails catching distinctly on the juts of bone. And it was perilous and moronic and so goddamn stupid because Dean got this quick little look on his face and Sam immediately lurched away, pulled his clothes from his brother's grip with a back-to-business grunt. Dean huffed shortly, blinked like a stupid owl and coiled his fingers at his sides.

After the small break, when their bones and muscles had had time to set stubborn and defiant, on strike at the abuse, Sam and Dean filled the grave back in with grievous, injured noises. Their groans sounded prolonged in the night, carrying over the headstones and resounding back until the boys were surrounded in the muted, cacophonous pain of their own doing.

"Freakin' – hate – this – job," Dean hissed between his teeth, shoulders rolling as he shovelled more dirt back into place, skin pulled tight, jaw clenched. Sam thought about rubbing the area just shy of Dean's wrist until the dirt there disappeared. "Thinkin' of things that'll get me through. Oiled massage. Oily masseuse. Naked oily massage from a naked oily masseuse. With a beer. And some pie."

Sam snorted, mouth sliced in half, winced imperceptibly because there we go with Dean and girls again (when was it _not_ Dean and girls?). "Dude," Sam grunted and shucked the last few mounds of dirt onto the grave. "Ew."

Sam lent on his shovel and sighed deeply, Dean mimicking him at his side, both men distinctly weary and fatigued. Sam thought Dean might try something again and tensed but Dean just shook dirt out of his hair and coughed.

"I get first shower or you get a lynching, it's that simple," Dean stated flatly and Sam rolled his eyes, shrugged an agreement and shouldered his shovel with a hurt sound. He proceeded to shamble toward the Impala.

Sam was battered and wrecked and too tired to even care that he was staring at Dean, was still thinking about Dean in the shower, was wondering what Dean's huge chest felt like coated in mud and strained from overworking and pressed hotly to his own.

"So… what is it, then?"

Dean heaved their shovels into the Impala's boot and slammed the lid shut, all rigid angles and frowning in a tight line, hands scrunched. There was a trying string to his tone. "If you're not mad, and I haven't done anything, and your menstrual cycle isn't due, then what is it?"

Sam sighed, thinking (hoping, begging) he could whine his way outta this one. (_Winchesters don't talk about it Winchesters don't talk about it Winchesters don't talk about it-_).

"Dean, I, can we just-"

Dean was in front of Sam and slamming him flat to the side of the car in under three seconds, thick forearm pressed firmly to Sam's throat, face inches from Sam's, their bodies flush together.

Sam was utterly, utterly pinned, nothing but road-kill, deer in the headlights, any other fucking metaphor you want to think of but the reality of it was that Sam's whole long body was against the Impala, and Dean's whole sturdy, delicious body was against the length of Sam's. There was a brief scuffle of feet and a reinforcing thump back into the Impala as Sam attempted ducking away.

"We can just. fucking. _talk_," Dean hissed, eyes blown huge and menacing and gorgeous in the streetlights, dirt everywhere, bottom lip looking worn and bitten at. Sam craned his neck, could barely stand to look at his brother in this ruined state, grime covered and filthy but still so freaking bright. Always the most consuming thing in Sam's life (the _only_ goddamn thing in Sam's life).

"Don't you go coming up with any bullshit, Sammy, and don't you _dare_ go and give me that damn puppy look and try to wheedle your way outta this – you fucking start talking."

Sam swallowed with difficulty, his body smouldering and burning from the inside out, from the outside in, thick boiling syrup running sticky and sweet through his veins. His nostrils flared, his throat jumped, nothing was coming to mind as an even half believable lie and Dean was just so fucking _close_.

Sam indicated to Dean's arm on his throat with a barely moveable hand and Dean backed off a millimetre, maybe two. Sam figured that was the best he was going to get and winced, throat clicking as he opened his mouth and desperately tried to keep his mind (or lack of) on track, because getting his hands underneath Dean's shirt and tracing the points of his ribcage would most definitely _not_ be the best thing to do here.

"I've been… feeling weird, lately," Sam started, cautious and slow, and something imperceptible shifted in Dean's features. Nothing specific really changed at all but the entirety of his expression suddenly evened out and seemed less angry, more concerned. Sam shook in Dean's grip.

"Weird how?" Dean pressed, voice sprawling through every bone in Sam's body and leaving behind the sensation that all of his joints had been stolen. Sam gave Dean a pleading look, frantic to not have to say much more. Dean promptly bared his teeth in response.

"I will _actually_ beat it out of you," he promised darkly.

"… Stomach aches…" Sam mumbled straight away, trying to keep his voice from shaking by giving it the least volume possible. "Um, a, a sore head, sometimes… trouble focussing on things…" Which was all true. Just, you know, happening because Sam was in love with his brother. Which Dean didn't need to know.

Dean's gaze was trained heavy and resolute on Sam's face and Sam knew his skin was crawling in red, hopefully which was invisible due to the dirt. Sam also knew he couldn't lie or bluff for his life to Dean, knew this was going to end horribly.

"How long has this been going on?" Dean asked finally, tone low and so freaking close and that Sam was sure he could touch it if he tried; Dean's thick voice inhabited the air like a tangible coil between the barely existent spaces where their bodies weren't touching. Sam basically thought the effect this had on his body was evil enough that he should have been hunting it.

"Um, um, just, you know-" Sam faltered. Five years, roughly, was how long. "A few days…"

"And you didn't tell me?"

"Didn't see the need," Sam muttered, almost unintelligible, eyes cast down where Dean's chest met his own. This was why Sam wasn't prepared for what happened next.

"You're sick?" Dean murmured, soft and low and gravel-velvet and _everywhere_. "Maybe this will make you feel better."

An interlude ensued that couldn't have lasted more than two seconds, wherein Sam was truly at a loss to what Dean could have meant and Dean made an expression that could have only been described as a euphoric smirk. And then Sam's pouty mouth was very suddenly occupied with Dean's rough one, molten lava and scorching ice and devastatingly soft against his lips.

What was left of Sam's mind totally short-circuited.

Dean's arm came loose from Sam's throat and instead looped around the back of his shoulders, wide callused palm cupping the heavy base of Sam's head and curling in the locks that fell there, holding Sam up entirely when Sam distantly thought he might just fall on his ass. Dean pressed in closer and Sam, having consciously caught up to the natural law his body was currently breaking, fucking lost it.

"Wait- wait, _what_?"

Sam gasped in air and Dean pulled away about, oh, three centimetres maybe, to the point where Sam went a little cross eyed trying to look at Dean's churning green eyes and Jesus, Dean still had to be drunk as _hell_, he didn't know what he was doing, when he sobered up Dean was going to kick Sam to the fucking curb-

"God, Sammy, you're so _dumb_ sometimes," Dean hissed and his mouth was glued to Sam's again. He was forceful with just the right amount of gentleness too, evidence of his experience with any leggy-blonde woman he deemed fit. One hand curved where Sam's jeans sat on his hips, heavy drugged touch, and the other threaded deeper into Sam's hair accompanied by a soft sigh into the younger man's mouth.

He spoke with his words punctuated by a firm movement; "If you'd have," his body bowed Sam's to the Impala, "just asked," and Sam tried to talk, "I would have _only_," a chaste kiss, "_said_," scrabbling of Sam's shirt being rucked up messily, "_yes_."

Again, Sam attempted speech (tried to scream and throw a confused fit, in fact), he really did, but he instead found himself urgently returning the pressure on his open mouth, slick heat next to his tongue, hands finding a death hold on Dean's neck. Dean fitted himself to Sam as though it was just that fucking _simple_ and Sam felt every line of his older brother pressing upon him and every ridge of his older brother's car digging into his back.

Dean broke the kiss again, forehead rested on Sam's, eyes huge and mouth red and abused.

"_Feeling weird_," he mimicked with an absurd grin and Sam was almost entirely certain he'd been poisoned somehow (the tea he'd ordered at the diner? Their alcohol?) and was now hallucinating.

He stared at Dean quite blatantly (more freely than he had allowed himself to for _years_); felt desperate and confused and like shoving Dean's hot hand down further down his body.

Dean continued. "You were gonna rip my pants off when I was drunk and praise me like a damn god. _So_ weird." He snorted.

An indignant squeak leapt from Sam's mouth, his body becoming rigid with shock (as if it already wasn't) because Dean had actually just fucking said that, actually just _kissed his younger brother_ (totally squeak-worthy).

"I wasn't- I would _never_-" Sam choked on his words, felt his brother's body everywhere (particularly Dean's nails scratching the base of his skull, lazy and purposeful). "I don't, um, Dean I don't understand. You… you too?"

And God, there it was. _You too_. The millions of times this confrontation had gone down in Sam's mind, the possibility of fights, of screaming, of silent anger, of abandonment, and absolutely _none_ of them had involved the pathetic, monosyllabic, ape-minded phrase _you too_.

Dean shifted forward a little until their mouths were touching, feather light and delicate and sporting an insanely maddening smirk. He nodded with slow, deliberate movements, lips drifting back and forth over Sam's. Sam could hardly breathe, and he found he was quite okay with it, all things considered (he was most probably dying from poisoning anyway).

"Me too, brainiac. Took your time figuring that one out, didn't you?"

"I never thought…" Sam breathed and Dean laughed, joyous and awfully cocky, swooped in for another earth-shattering kiss, splayed his hand intently underneath Sam's shirt.

Half of his fingers hooked in the indent of Sam's hipbone and the other half pressed over the soft area of skin just below Sam's bellybutton. Electricity like a lightning strike shot through Sam's body, abdomen all quivering muscle, scorched and blistered.

"I repeat, college boy," Dean smirked, "_so_. _dumb_."

And then Sam darted forward and mouthed a long, straight line from Dean's collarbone to the edge of his jaw, tasting exhausted hot Dean and sweat cooled by the thick night time air and something distinctly instinctual beneath all of that, the taste of a Winchester. He clamped his teeth down lightly at the junction between his older brother's throat and jaw and felt Dean's gasp like heroin in his veins.

"Been wanting to do that for a freaking long time," Sam muttered against his brother's skin.

Dean was then promptly and violently ripped up from the ground and tossed backward, limbs flailing and making contact with an awful _thud_ into a nearby headstone.

"_Two men_?" a voice hissed, unearthly and detached from any detectable body, floating almost visibly in the air – a poisonous auditory coil, reeking of decay and leaving tendrils of unnerving fear in its wake. A vicious chill overcame the immediate area as Sam's mind fractured into two trains of thought; to understand what that _fuck _was happening, and that he had in fact been right in feeling there was something they had missed. Clearly_, _the haunting was not over.

Sam remotely thought to move toward Dean and found that he already had; knees and palms wet from the early morning dew as he stooped down. Dean groaned, faint and definitely pissed off, and rolled into his back with jerked movements.

Sam dimly registered a low undertone and realised it to be himself, sounding heart-stopping and anxious as he desperately asked, "Dean Dean Dean" in staccato and pressed his spidery fingers to Dean's chest in search of perilous injuries. Dean murmured, "Yeah Sammy yeah I'm okay it's okay," quickly in response, hands finding his brother's shoulders and tangling in the material there as he hauled himself upward.

A pale figure transpired, hovering two inches off the ground a few feet from Sam and Dean where they bowed around each other, a white collar hugging his mutilated throat, onyx beetle shells for eyes.

The ghost sniffed the air, curled his top lip and spat harshly.

"_Brothers_!" he cried, "_Brothers engaging romantically. Oh, I've dealt with some sinners before but this_…"

He grinned terribly and before Sam could even blink, he was headed skull first toward a thick, concrete mausoleum wall.

Senseless star constellations burst in Sam's head in the worst way and white-wash noise consumed his being when he made brutal contact. His existence was abruptly reduced to one singular point of focus in his frontal lobe, which was trying to shred itself into splintering shards of molten, undulating pain.

"Sam!" Dean yelled and Sam thought he might have breathed Dean's name back, couldn't be certain because the earth was spinning really, _really_ fast and also he wasn't entirely sure how to move his mouth correctly, and nothing was doing _anything_ to help with the sharp, hot throb directly above his left eyebrow.

Sam thought he was going to be sick and groaned, rolled over, groaned again and barely managed to pry his eyes open. Each breath felt like a prize boxer's blow to the temple.

The stars distracted him a moment.

They were dizzying and splayed out haphazardly, in the kind of raw beauty only nature manifested. Sam thought that perhaps his brain, collapsing in on itself and falling into a silvery abyss of eruptions that felt just like the incandescent balls of gas looked, appeared like that sky, and that if he were to die of head trauma then staring at the stars wouldn't be a bad way to go.

But then there was a grunt and a loud shot, uncomfortably loud and tinny, as though Sam perceived all the noises through a mile long row of metal cans. Sam's body jolted.

Dean was facing off with the ghost, having stood up and acquired a gun at some point and Sam wondered groggily if he'd passed out because he didn't think that cut had been on Dean's face just before, nor that much blood. He was immediately overwhelmed with the sense that Dean was in danger and he wasn't doing anything about it.

"Dean," Sam uttered, and there must have been a wind that carried his voice or something because there was no way that Dean could hear him from all the way over there, yelling at the ghost to "make a move, go on, it'll be the last move you _can_ make, bitch".

But Dean's head suddenly whipped around and his eyes bored into Sam's. There was a quick, imperceptible nod, burning melted mess of relief in Dean's eyes and then he had attention only for the spirit once again. Another shot sounded.

Sam moaned from a mental distant – more for the principle of the matter that was his lightning cracked skull than actual pain, as he'd become notably (worryingly) numb – and rolled around a little, gaining his vertical footing and digging his hands into the dirt. He braced the weight of his body against his elbows.

He heard Dean shout and the sound only spurred him onward in his battle against gravity and, more likely than not, a concussion, and there was an awful few moments stretched into eternity where Sam shoved himself up and his hands lost contact with the ground but his equilibrium was yet to catch up.

Sam floated through light and space and the hot, sticky mesh of his brain before slamming back down into his body, to such an abrupt point that it was almost rude. His headache was grating anew on the compressed inside of his skull and the entire existence of his skin felt like one massive bruise.

"Dean," he said again, figuring it was the best thing to be said here and bumbled forward, thoroughly mystified when finding himself face to face with a tall headstone all of a sudden. His nose brushed the concrete and Sam thought abstractedly to shift backward and continue walking to Dean, but as he shuffled and endeavoured to manoeuvre his thoughts into actions, he instead found himself horrifyingly devoid of all energy. He slumped against the stone for support, mumbled his brother's name a few more times in confusion.

Darkness washed in through Sam's vision and his head lolled, body slid down the side of the gravestone. He sat there, fading in and out of consciousness, with no idea how much time passed until he heard a voice.

"Sam? Oh, god, Sam, tell me you can hear me."

Dean voice was raw and shot through with panic and Sam trembled a little at it, tried to bring his head up reassuringly but was nearly one hundred percent sure it was filled with copious, treacly liquid weighting it down. Sam settled for humming and lifted his hand instead, sought out Dean's body, blinked dumbly at the ground.

Fingers tangled with his own quickly and Sam felt lips press down over his grazed knuckles, felt his body being heaved up and his arm thrown over Dean's shoulder. Sam worried again that he was going to hurl and curled toward his brother's body, hid his face in Dean's neck.

"Come on, Sasquatch, come on," Dean rumbled, voice totally strung out and body tense beneath Sam's fingers. Sam blinked a little, surprised to find his eyes open, snuffled his mouth against Dean's skin for the hell of it. "Talk to me ya big oaf, don't you dare clock out now."

Sam swayed into Dean's side, dragged his foot forward petulantly and wondered what had come of the ghost.

"'s the… priest," Sam mumbled and flickered his eyes open again. "Ghost… is… the priest."

"No shit, Sherlock," Dean quipped but his voice was rich with relief. "I'm not blind." His palm was flat over Sam's hip, keeping him upright and close to Dean's body.

"Think I've got… c'ncussion, Dean," Sam noted, aggrieved, and a highly relevant metaphor suddenly took front and centre in Sam's questionable state of mind. Sam opened his mouth and fluttered his eyelids, and in a wash of abounding light the thought was gone.

There was a laugh. "Again, no shit."

Sam swayed violent and wide in an involuntary shudder when he tried to right himself fully, nearly sent both brothers toppling to the ground. Dean held Sam closer bodily, shucked his hand beneath his little brother's shirt and pressed his fingers into the flesh he found.

"Woah, steady now, Sammy. Don't worry, I've got you." Dean paused and took a deep breath, blew it out. Suddenly his mouth was skating over Sam's jaw and onto his lips, pressing urgent and quick and very desperate. His stubble was rough and delectable.

"No dying, you hear?" Dean commanded and Sam coughed, his mouth tasting thoroughly of his older brother; a flavour he was immediately attuned to and didn't think that he would ever manage to get enough of. He also remotely had the mind to think that now was a very inappropriate time for kissing.

"Got it."

Dean said they were nearly at the car, soothing and quiet into Sam's ear, when Sam suddenly recalled his fractured comparison. A gasp tumbled from his lips; mental fingers grasped at the tendrils so as to not lose the thought in his mind again.

"The stars," he said and Dean mumbled quick nothings in agreement, little "yeah Sammy yeah the stars" that Sam felt on his collarbone. He roused himself a little more, blinked at his brother and wiped some blood from Dean's cheek with a clumsy hand; Dean snuck a chaste kiss onto his palm and smirked. Sam's heart lilted in its pattern and lurched.

"Never was… the sun; the _stars_," Sam repeated importantly and shook his head in frustration. Dean's fingers tightened around the jut of Sam's hip and Sam pressed into it, into Dean in general.

"The… stars?" Dean prompted finally as he unwound Sam's arm from his shoulders, rested his little brother's wilting body against the passenger door of the Impala.

Dean fished the keys out of his pocket and unlocked Sam's door, lowered his brother down gently with both hands and maybe lingered around just to touch him a little more, but it was okay because Sam craned up to stay in contact with Dean's palms too. It was all at once surreal and natural and brilliant and more than a little terrifying.

"You're like the stars, not the sun," Sam said with only a slight cadence to his voice once Dean was in the driver's seat, and Dean gave him a swift, startled look. Sam crawled a bit closer, still uncoordinated entirely from his head injury and Dean hooked a hand in his jacket without thinking, tugged Sam's torso over his lap as he started the car. Sam rag-dolled compliantly, continued dizzily.

"Chaotic, unprecedented…" Sam said slowly, his eyes slipping shut again involuntarily, his cheek warm against rough denim. "And wholly consuming. Always there. Stubborn. Just you and the stars."

He sighed, content with having gotten out the correct metaphor for his brother, and decided that now was as good a time as any to heed his brain's wishes for slumber.

"Must run in the blood Sammy, 'cause you're pretty alright yourself." Dean's voice was a tangible smirk, his fingers light in Sam's hair. There was quiet for a few moments save for the guttural growling of the Impala (when did Dean start the engine?), the rumbling of wheels over asphalt. Sam yawned.

"… So that making out, huh?" Dean added on after a contemplative pause, "That was pretty good. That, um… that gonna happen again Sammy?"

Sam, disgruntled at having his near nap interrupted, turned his head to the side and pressed his mouth to Dean's stomach through his shirt as an answer, quick and lazy and hot. Dean gasped, jerked the steering wheel and Sam lapped kinda contently at the material growing steadily wetter, at the searing skin just beyond that. He settled after a moment more and curled his fingers on Dean's thigh.

"Yeah?" Dean confirmed and his voice was just something else, this whole other dimension blown wide and wondrous from this whole encounter, and Sam was delirious at the thought of exploring every inch.

Sam nodded, hummed shushes in his throat as he closed his eyes again.

"Sleep now Dean," Sam mumbled. "Concussion. Fighting death. Talk later. Make out later."

Sam _felt_ Dean's grin more than any other sense and, as he was falling asleep with his cheek nursed against Dean's thigh, he wondered what had been the most stupid thing he had done in his life; fall in love with his older brother, or take this long to let it see the light of the stars?

THE END


End file.
